


Call It Magic

by lizandletdie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Bondage, Circus, F/M, PWP, assistant belle, bondage & dominance, magician gold, may or may not include dubcon, mdom, this is kind of a shady gold, woobie!dom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4755257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle has been living and working in the circus with the magician Gold for her entire adult life, but things aren’t always what they seem even with a man you think you know. Circus magician BDSM AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Devil's Torture Chamber

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even sorry.
> 
> Edited to add on October 20, 2015: So there is some disagreement as to whether or not the first chapter includes dubcon. I hadn't initially thought so, and opinions varied wildly, so be forewarned that this may or may not be dubcon in the first little bit.

Gold didn't take on assistants. At least, that's what everyone had told Belle when she had first come into the circus as an 18-year-old former gymnast with aspirations of becoming an acrobat. Well, it turned out that flips and splits were a lot different when you were standing on a platform thirty feet in the air or on the back of a horse. Her one saving grace had been that she was young and pretty enough with auburn curls and big blue eyes.

Jefferson, the flamboyant ringmaster, was on the verge of signing her on to be a contortionist when David, who auditioned the acrobats, looked at her thoughtfully and walked out of the tent. When he returned, there was a third man with him who looked her up and down critically. This new man was older than both the others, perhaps in his forties, and wiry. He had a strange grace about him as well, that neither of the other men possessed. She would learn later that this was Gold, magician who toured with the circus.

"Do you want to be one of five girls on a small stage outside?" He asked. "Or would you rather be in the center ring with the spotlight on you?"

Belle wasn't sure what he meant, because nobody had really asked her what she wanted out of life before. She wanted to get out of this town before it killed her, mostly. She wanted an adventure, and she wanted to be safe.

"Center ring," she replied, more because it seemed like the right answer than anything else. "I want to be a star."

"She'll do," he said at last, glancing over to the rigmaster. "We'll start tomorrow. I assume you'll want to tell your parents goodbye?"

She shook her head - she didn't really have anyone to say goodbye to. She'd gotten into a fight with her dad and stormed out. If she weren't eighteen she was pretty sure he'd have called the cops and reported her as a runaway. As it was, she'd spent the night in the bus stop to get to the audition.

"I don't really have anywhere else to go," she finally said because there wasn't anything else to say.

He grimaced, but nodded.

"Well, be in the tent by seven then," he said firmly. "We'll see if we can make a decent performer out of you."

He stalked out of the tent without a second glance at anyone else, leaving Belle looking back and forth between the other two in the hopes of them having some idea of what she was to do now.

Jefferson called in another girl named Ruby to show Belle to the trailer some of the girls shared. Ruby was the one to tell her that Gold didn't usually take assistants, at least not since anyone could remember. In the end, she'd only spent one night in the girls' trailer before he'd offered her the sofa in his. From then on, Belle and Gold had been damn near inseparable.

He was a demanding boss. It wasn't uncommon for them to practice their routine from dawn until the first shows in the afternoon, and then run through the whole thing again one last time after the last show at night during that first year. It was a grueling schedule, and if she'd been much older than eighteen she didn't think she could have kept up. How he did it was impossible for her to understand, but he seemed to have a boundless energy for this sort of thing.

The circus didn't travel in the winter, but while most of the people settled down to repair props and costumes, Gold and Belle would practice new routines and do stage shows. She'd never been so tired in her life, but she loved every minute of it with him.

After the first year, he started showing her tricks. Little things at first - sleights of hand she could use to keep the audience distracted for him, but later it became more. She started taking on a larger role in his stage shows during the off season and became even more integral to his performances under the big top. She loved the stage shows more than anything.

During the stage shows, he'd sometimes tie a strap around her chest in a harness. Belle loved the harness. She didn't think it was anything sexual, both of their costumes for the stage show were edgier than the costumes they used in the circus, and even at the circus she was used to going out in front of people in a low cut leotard covered in sequins and not much else. He'd wear leather pants and she'd be in a miniskirt and he would take a piece of black belting and wind it around her chest to form a pentagram over her tight shirt. Belle loved the look of it, but getting it put on was her secret pleasure. It wasn't tight enough to constrict her in any way, but she could feel it centering her on him constantly, and she was even more aware of his every movement than usual. It was like she was tethered to him by those moments when he was wrapping her in the belting.

It didn't seem to be sexual for him - at least not at first. Belle had half expected him to invite her into his bed when he'd asked her to come stay with him instead of in the girls' trailer, and she'd been prepared to do it, too. He wasn't bad looking and she wasn't a virgin. The idea of fucking him almost seemed like the perfect addition to this teenage fantasy of running away to join the circus. By the time she was twenty, though, he'd never made any moves toward her and she'd begun to accept that he wasn't interested.

One day, though, not long before her twenty-first birthday, she arrived at the rehearsal stage he kept for them to use in the off season to find him standing with his back towards her and a length of brightly colored rope in his hand.

"What's that?" she asked, coming up to him and leaning against the Devil's torture chamber - the box she would stand in while he stabbed swords through it. It was her favorite trick, because it depended on her to perform the illusion by contorting her body around the swords and guiding them away from herself, all with a smile on her face.

"I'd like to try a new harness on you," he said with a strange throaty sound to his voice. "If you don't mind."

"Of course not," she said with a shrug, coming to stand in front of him with her arms outstretched in the usual position. "You know me, always up for anything."

His eyes darted to her face quickly, before he draped the rope around the back of her neck and set his eyes back to his work. He made three little knots down the center of her chest, but then he dropped the tail end of the rope and moved behind her. She wasn't sure what he meant to do next, as her usual harness started and stayed at chest level and didn't really require him to be behind her. Gold traced his hand down her side lightly to her hip, and it took her a moment to realize he'd dropped down to crouch behind her and reached his hands between her legs to grab the rope and pull it back behind her.

Belle was instantly on alert at the sensation of the rope pressing against her most sensitive areas. This was a boundary they'd never crossed in their two years of living together. Not that there was much in the way of privacy in a shared trailer with one bedroom and one bathroom, but until now he had never touched her with any sort of intent. Her head was buzzing already as he doubled the rope over through the strap that ran behind her neck and then worked it under her arms and through the rope in the front. He then criss-crossed the rope between her front and her back a few times, before finally tying it in a knot across her belly.

The entire process was performed while standing behind her, and it wasn't until he stepped away that she realized she was leaning against him by the time he stopped. This harness felt far different than her other one did. Even through her clothes, she could feel the rope pressing against her clit and labia every time she moved. She was breathless within seconds and he was suddenly walking past her to take his place in the center of the stage where he would begin the show.

Gold gestured towards her expectantly and she realized suddenly he expected her to go along with an entire rehearsal in this rig. She couldn't do anything but try not to stumble as she moved forward to take his hand and perform a quick bow together downstage. Her skin was prickly as they ran through the first trick: a simple dove pan where she provided him with an empty pan and, after some banter, he produced a live dove. It turned out to be a good thing they always rehearsed with a toy, as she almost dropped the pan the first time, and he made her do it three or four more times until she could do it smoothly despite the arousal she was fairly sure might kill her.

They went through most of the rest of the act the same way. She would be trembling, or botch her lines, and he would have her run through the trick again until she was performing it flawlessly. He had to know what effect this was having on her. She was making mistakes she hadn't made since her first week of work, and she knew she had to be flushed and could feel the beads of sweat that were beading on her chest and making their way down towards her breasts before catching on the rope that encased her.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been a little tighter or a little looser, she decided. If he'd pulled the rope tighter she may have had a chance to come which would have been embarrassing but the man had walked in on her in the shower before and she'd caught him masturbating in there once, so she was fairly certain he could handle that. If it were a little bit looser, it wouldn't be driving her quite so insane. It was the delicate balance of constant stimulation that was never quite  _enough_  that had her about to go mad.

The worst part was when it was time to be sawed in half. The box was opaque for obvious reasons, but she was strapped to the table at her ankles and wrists to preserve the illusion that she might want to escape before the box was closed over her. The whole enterprise was a disaster from the start. First, she missed her cue. It was hardly the first cue she'd missed that evening, but if anything he was becoming less patient with her as she became less able to focus.

"Are you quite all right?" he snapped at her, watching for a reaction. "You'd think this was the first time we'd ever done this."

She hated failing and hated disappointing him, and that stubborn pride was all that kept her clinging to sanity and not falling down on her knees and begging him to take the new harness off. She could do this. She was a professional.

"I'm fine," she forced out, straightening her back out and forcing herself to focus on the cue and the routine, and definitely not on the feel of his hands on her hips as he helped her up onto the table.

They both liked the look of it when she struggled and tested the soft leather cuffs after he strapped her down, but she couldn't quite manage it as desperate as she was to get some relief. Gold looked at her for a little while as she lay there before grimacing and ordering her off the table to start again.

Belle thought she might cry from the sheer frustration as she stumbled back to her previous mark and ran through the cue over again, followed by him lifting her onto the table, and then the way his fingers felt as he strapped her down. This time she tugged halfheartedly at her bonds, and even though he scowled at her he still brought the box down to cover her torso. He moved around to get the metal plates that would drive down into a hole in the box 'severing' her into two. She had only a few seconds to pull her leg shackles off the magnet that attached them to the table and fold her body into the top half of the box.

She managed to do it just a little bit slower than normal, but she had to stop him from slamming the first of the plates into the box too soon and he sighed, putting them back down, coming around, taking the box off of her and unshackling her.

"If you can't take this seriously today then perhaps we shouldn't bother?"

She wanted to cry. This was a test - she  _knew_  this was a test, but she wasn't quite sure what his purpose was in it. She couldn't fail, though. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't dare fail him.

"I'm okay," she promised. "Give me another chance?"

He nodded brusquely, giving her the cue again before helping her onto the table. This time, when she struggled she couldn't suppress the moan that escaped her at the way the ropes were touching her. She'd never been so wet in her life as he closed the box and moved away. She folded her knees up to her chest again, which had the unforeseen consequence of driving the ropes as tight against her clit as they could possibly go while not actually moving them one bit and she bit her lip so hard she tasted blood at the jolt of pleasure that shot through her. She was fairly sure a stiff breeze would have had her climaxing at that point, but she couldn't move at all once he had placed the plates in and her hands were still tied above her head securely. Why couldn't she have been employed by one of the magicians who let the girls keep their arms inside the box?

Once he had spun her around and then 'put her back together,' the box came open and she stood up and took another bow. She somehow managed not to fall off the table on her legs that felt like gelatin, and she was fairly certain she'd never have gotten down at all without him helping her.

That just left her one last trick and it was -  _oh no_.

The last trick was the Devil's torture chamber. It was usually her favorite part of the show, when she would stand inside the box and gently move the blades around her body as he thrust them into the box. She loved it because it required perfect concentration and depended entirely on her to do it correctly. In her current state, though, she'd botched every single trick so far. There was no way she could manage this one.

She got as far as standing in the doorway to her box before she stopped, bracing her hands against the sides and refusing to go in.

"No," she gasped out at last.

"No?" he said curiously, coming to stand behind her and putting an arm around her torso. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she replied, gratefully leaning her weight into him. "I mean...no...I just can't. Not like this."

"Not like what?" he asked her firmly. "I can't fix it if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"This harness," she said, gesturing in front of herself in the hopes he'd read her meaning in the words she couldn't say.

"The harness?"

"I need…" words were eluding her - when did speaking become so damn impossible?

"Do you want me to take it off?"

Did she? It was hard to think about what she wanted. She  _needed_ , that's all she knew. She needed touch, she needed to come...she didn't give a damn what happened with the harness in the meantime.

Instead of answering him, she grabbed his free hand and moved it down to cup her and hope he'd catch her meaning. He brought his hand back and she could see that it was a little damp. How the hell had he expected her to ever wear this on a stage?

He held her to him with the arm around her waist and moved his hand to cup her breasts through the cotton of her shirt and the rop that surrounded them. Her nipples had never been so damn sensitive in her life, and when he plucked one of them she suddenly felt the sensation shooting straight to her groin and she cried out.

"Did that hurt?" he whispered into her hair and it took her a second to think about the question before she shook her head 'no.'

He growled in reply, tweaking and plucking her nipple as she whimpered and moaned until suddenly the sensation overtook her and she was shaking in his arms from an orgasm. She'd never come from her nipples before, and as her fevered mind slowly came to some sort of sense, she suddenly realized it wasn't enough.

"Better?" he rasped, cupping her breast and kneading it.

"No," she whined. "I need more. I need you to touch me."

"Are you sure?" he asked, but she could hear that it was more a warning than a question.

She didn't care, though. She nodded yes, and the next thing she knew her back was pressed into the Devil's torture chamber and he was grinding against her.

"What do you want?" he demanded, his hands sliding down her sides and his mouth roaming the expanse of her neck above the rope.

"You," she said. "I want you. Please."

He nodded, stepping back a half step and pulling tightly on the front of the rope in a way that made her cry out and shiver. He slowly untied the knot in front of her, then unwound the rope from her body. The loss of pressure against her swollen clit almost made her collapse, but he caught her and spun her so she was facing the wall. He reached down and pulled her shirt off, then her bra, dropping both to the floor of the box.

She felt the rope begin to wind around her again and it took her a moment to recognize her usual pentagram harness. She put her arms out to the sides as usual, but was surprised when he brought them around behind her and bound them into the harness. He'd never restrained her before outside of a magic show, and she hadn't realized her chest harness would do  _this_ even as he had the rope pressing her breasts up and her arms trapped behind her.

He spun her again, checking her face as though he was worried she had reconsidered. If anything, she was more excited, though, and she leaned back against the box willing to see what he had planned. She lived with him, she was regularly naked in front of him for costume changes, and he shoved sharp objects at her on a nightly basis. She trusted him with her life and her safety, and she knew he trusted her or else their professional relationship would never have worked.

"Please," she breathed softly. "I want you."

That seemed to be all the encouragement he needed, because the next thing she knew her tights were on the floor and his fingers were in her pussy. He didn't touch her clit, and she was fairly sure he was trying to draw this out as long as possible as he fingered her hard and then soft in turns, curling his fingers sometimes just to tease her with friction where she wanted it the most before going back to his hard thrusts. Sometimes his thumb would press against her clit as he thrust, and in spite of his teasing it didn't take long before she was making sharp little noises that had her grateful they were alone here.

Just when she thought she might come on his hand, he pulled it away sharply. His fingers were coated in her arousal and he rubbed a finger across her lips, drawing her tongue out to taste her on her lips before he slid a finger into her mouth. She sucked desperately, hoping to seduce him into giving her  _something_  but he held maddeningly firm. Instead, he kissed her hard and desperately, as though he was trying to devour her.

"Beautiful Belle," he murmured. "So desperate, so lovely. Perhaps I should leave you here, hm? Or lock you in the trunk over there," he nodded towards the trick trunk behind him. "Would you like that?"

The strange coil of arousal that had suddenly bloomed in her belly at the idea of being left like this surprised her, but no matter how close they were she didn't dare voice that aloud yet.

"Please," she begged. "I need you. I need this."

"What do you need?"

"Fuck me," she finally said. "I need you to fuck me."

The thought she hadn't admitted to him in the two years they'd been together, that she wanted him. The thought that would sometimes drive her fingers in the middle of the night when she was sure he wouldn't walk in on her (or maybe when she hoped he would?) was finally spoken out loud.

He made a little whimpering noise in the back of his throat before his hands were suddenly at his fly and his cock sprang forth, bright red and shining with precum. Maybe some other time she'd have to get him to let her touch him, but with her arms behind her back and her pussy desperate for his attention she didn't care.

Gold put his hands on her ass, lifting her up into the air and her legs wrapped around his hips easily. They had experience with him lifting her up, after all. He lined himself up with her entrance carefully, then thrust into her, driving her against the wall of the box.

She'd never felt so full in her entire life as when he drove into her over and over again. Her orgasm was building higher and higher as he thrust into her, leaning forward to keep the leverage of the wall. She saw sweat beading on his forehead and knew he was close. It hadn't ever occurred to Belle how much she'd love looking at him as he fucked her even as she'd always wanted to see it.

He finally moved one hand down to tease her clit and as wound up as she was it was the work of a few seconds to have her screaming his name as she came hard on his cock. He kept thrusting through her orgasm, before following with his own just as she finally came down.

Neither one of them could stand for long, and somehow they both managed to get to the floor without either one being hurt. Belle was still dazed in her post-coital state, but Gold was at least lucid enough to untie her hands so she could get out of her harness. They lay there a long time, her curled up into his side and him stroking the rope marks left in her flesh.

Once her arousal had finally subsided, Belle knew that their relationship was forever altered by this. She didn't know precisely how, but she'd always been brave or foolish enough to want him, and she couldn't regret it now that she may have him.


	2. Illusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild plot has appeared! This is actually going back to an original idea I'd had before I posted the first chapter, but it makes the story a lot more interesting I think.

Belle felt too loudly. As a general rule, Gold could control whose minds he was inside, but Belle made it very hard to stay out of hers. Everything she thought, she thought _more_ than he was used to from most people – or maybe it was just that he was closer to her than he was to anyone else – but it had taken him the better part of their first year together before he was able to keep the lion’s share of her feelings out of his own head. Of course, he always opened himself up to her when they were performing. He liked to think it kept her safer for him to be aware of when she was ready as soon as she was, but it did have the unfortunate side effect of letting him know when she was enjoying something they did a little bit _too_ much. It wasn’t truly being psychic, it was more like he was particularly keyed into her emotions. He felt what she felt, and usually it was quite pleasant, but sometimes it could be a bit of a distraction.

Sometimes he wondered if he should tell her he could do things like that. She was always eager to learn the new tricks and the _real_ magic were the best ones he knew. He’d been burned before by teaching an assistant the real tricks, and he didn’t want to take the chance of her vanishing once she’d gotten the secrets from him – or worse, of learning of his skill and leaving in disgust. He liked having her around too much and it wasn’t as though he could ask her and see what her reaction was.

She could surprise him, though. She’d always been a little surprising, even when they first met. He could still remember laying in bed the first night after she’d moved in and trying to sleep through her anxiety and anticipation mixed with a strange level of arousal. It had been a _very_ interesting few weeks before she’d apparently decided he wasn’t going to come molest her in her sleep. He could still sometimes get an accidental glimpse of her feelings when she was particularly aroused, especially if he was asleep and his protections were down (though the fact that she shared his bed now made that much easier to deal with). He still wasn’t sure how he’d worked up the courage to put her in the harness with the crotch rope, but she’d reacted even more intensely than he’d expected. She had always enjoyed him putting her into handcuffs or locking her in boxes, but with the addition of the rope she’d metamorphized. It was like she’d been waiting for him to learn this about her before she could be her true self around him, and she felt _louder_ afterward.

She was currently thinking too loudly while reading a novel that had her in turns angry and excited. It must be a good book, judging from her reactions, though he didn’t dare ask about it since he wasn't supposed to know. Anyway, he hated to disturb her when she was so comfortable splayed out on his bed – _their_ bed, he reminded himself – in so very little clothes. She was so much more at home now that they had begun sleeping together. It really was a shame he was going to have to interrupt.

“Belle?” he called to her from the sofa. “Can I get your opinion on something?”

“Sure!” she replied, sliding a marker into her book and coming to stand in the door frame. “What’s up?”

“Look at these costumes for me, will you? Jefferson wants us to have a sexier act.”

“ _Sexier?_ ” she said a little disbelievingly, sauntering over to take the pictures he’d been holding. “I’m already wearing a sparkly bathing suit. How much sexier can we possibly get before people won’t bring their kids?”

“These aren’t for the big top,” he said. “He wants us to do a second show in a smaller tent after the all ages one. Something for the adults and older teens. Raunchier banter, sexier costumes, drunker patrons.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“Probably the same thing I wear for the stage shows,” he said with a shrug. “Although I’ll probably add something sparkly to it. Maybe a sequined waistcoat and a shiny shirt with the pants?”

“And I’m assuming that means that my miniskirt and bondage harness won’t work?” she said. “Although I am looking forward to more leather pants action.”

“I bet,” he said, reaching out and stroking her bare hip. She’d apparently decided not to bother with pants today, and the sweatshirt over panties thing was slowly killing him.

“I think I like the corset idea – though I don’t really like the skirt this one has,” she said at last. “It’s sexy but not _too_ ridiculous. We can always do stockings over my tights, too. The dads should like that one.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to bend freely in a corset?”

A lot of their tricks revolved around her being able to contort herself into very small spaces in a very short period of time, which was the reason that David had called him in after her audition. Her flexibility and small stature made her perfect for that sort of work, and her unwavering need to be there was why he’d broken his own rule against assistants and asked her to stay. He could technically make the tricks happen for real, but it helped him maintain the illusion of not actually being magical if he used actual illusions in the act. He was, of course, painfully aware of the irony involved in that deception.

“That’s a good point,” she replied, leaning into his hand where it was touching her. “We could get one and try it out? Or maybe get something with seaming to mimic a corset? Then a short jacket and a push-up bra could help with the effect.”

He nodded, trying to summon the image in his head.

“How do you feel about a tutu?” he asked her. “If we do the skirt short enough it’ll flare out and flash the audience the bottom of the leotard when you bend over. I know it’s technically more clothes than you usually wear for a performance, but for this kind of thing it’s all about the tease and the illusion of seeing something forbidden.”

“I like that a lot,” she replied, handing him back his pictures. “What colors are we doing? Blue still or something else?”

“I was thinking metallic gold, actually,” he said. “Metallic gold and black.”

He slipped his fingers into the leg of her panties and stroked her ass and hip at the same time. She sighed and he felt her beginning to lean more of her weight into his hand. He smiled and pulled her into his lap.

“We’ll need to script some new banter,” he said. “Work up some different characters. How do you feel about being a coquette?”

She hummed a little and pivoted to drape her legs over the arm of the sofa while he held her in his lap. They’d occasionally used a coquettish character for her in the stage shows especially. She would flirt and flounce and tease him to apparent distraction. Audiences tended to think it was funny watching his seeming exasperation with her behavior, and it served to distract them from what was going on behind the scenes.

“I could give it a try,” she said. “I like teasing you on stage.”

“I think the audience would have an easier time connecting with the whole thing if we treat it like a game.”

“So if I’m the coquette does that mean you’re going to be the lech?”

“Oh good,” he said, shopping his arms under her legs and tilting her back precariously. “You’re getting into character already.”

“I live in character.”

Her face was totally serene as she spoke, despite the fact that her entire weight was balanced on his arm and if he let go of her she’d at least tip onto the sofa if not the floor. He wouldn’t drop her, though, and they both knew it. He’d never dropped her, and she’d never doubted him. It was an impressive rapport they’d had from the beginning, and the addition of sex had somehow only improved it. Gold ran his hand from her knee to her hip over and over again, and she raised her arms over her head and let them hang behind her so she was entirely at his whim.

He trailed his fingers down her thighs, keeping his mind open to feel her arousal growing. She loved being off balance like this, and he could practically get himself off from the way she reacted to it. It was all he could do not to groan when she felt him rub his fingertips over her pussy softly.

“Stand up,” he said, pushing her upright. She leapt to her feet quickly and was biting her lip in excitement by the time she was standing. She knew what he’d had in mind the moment he suggested it.

He went to the bedroom and took out a few lengths of rope. They had a rainbow of colors, but he always thought the blue looked prettiest on her skin so that was the one he brought back to her. He lifted the hem of her sweatshirt and she raised her arms to help him as he stripped it off of her and tossed it away. He wrapped the rope around her chest above and below her breasts a few times before raising one arm behind her head and binding her wrist to her opposite side. He repeated with the other one so that they would be crossed behind her head later when she was laying on the floor. Once her chest was fairly well encased in the rope, he set his attention back on her arms, tying her forearms to her upper arms so that even if her wrists were free her arms would be trapped in a bent position. Every few passes he would use his fingers to test the tightness to make sure she wasn’t too constricted.

“Lay down, sweetheart,” he said, helping her to the floor and onto her back. “Do you want your bullet?”

She nodded eagerly and he reached one hand behind himself and summoned the toy to his hand before producing it with a dramatic flare as though it had been slight of hand that brought it and not the supernatural. He should really tell her eventually. There were all kinds of things he could do to her with his fingers if he could just get up the nerve to tell her he could do them. And then she could tell everyone about it and leave him, just like the last woman did. No, that didn’t bear thinking about when he was peeling Belle’s panties down and popping the small vibrator inside of her.

He wasn’t trying to feel her mind anymore, but she was thinking loudly again and she was enjoying it so much. He looped the rope around her waist and started winding it down her body, twisting it and knotting it as he went. He ran a row of knots between her legs, pressing them firmly against her clit and over her entrance before he bound her legs together tightly. She whimpered at the sensation as he worked his way down to her ankles and feet, even threading the rope between her toes before finishing around her ankles. By the time he was done she was more mummy than woman. Aside from her breasts and face, the rest of her didn’t have more than an inch or two of space between the ropes. He could feel her desperation for touch at the same time that she was completely relaxed by the helplessness of the situation.

“How does that feel?” he asked, bending her knees over his shoulder and rubbing her legs while she rested on her back.

“Just right,” she said with a rope drunk smile on her face.

He’d known she was okay, but hearing her say it always made it that little bit better.

“I’m going to tie you to the ceiling now,” he said. “Are you okay for an inversion?”

She nodded enthusiastically, and he set her feet back down while he secured another length of rope into something resembling a noose and hooked it over the little metal bracket fixed in the middle of the room. It was ostensibly there so they could practice escapes, but in reality he’d only ever used it for this.

The free end of the rope he looped through her leg bindings in a few places and hauled her legs back up into the air, tugging with his body weight to get her lower body into the air while her shoulders still rested comfortably on the floor. A few knots secured the rope at that height and he smiled at the pretty picture she made as she lay there helplessly. She was completely immobilized. He sat beside her and lifted her shoulders up enough to free her hair, which he spread out around her face in a halo. Perfect.

She was starting to really feel the effects of the vibrator and he could see the flush of it on her face and feel her ecstasy in his own mind as he started massaging her breasts the way she liked it.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked as she gave a few half hearted attempts to move before accepting that she was entirely trapped and relaxing on the floor.

“Nothing,” she said, though he could feel her mind registering impatience and lust and some mild annoyance. He glanced up her legs and couldn't help but smile.

“You're not going to be able to get yourself off by squeezing your thighs together,” he reminded her. “At least not without some help and we both know it.”

She looked at him with a hint of surprise, though that quickly went away as he worked a finger under the ropes encasing her hips and pressed the knots he'd made against her clit.

Belle made a horrible strangled noise and arched her back as far as she could, which would have worried him if he hadn't felt the way her pleasure skyrocketed at his touch.

“Better?” he asked her, rubbing along the knots so they pressed against her in a slow rhythm.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Oh please don't stop.”

“As my lady wishes.”

He thought she would look lovely on a throne. Maybe he could find a trick to do that would give him an excuse tie her to one, or else he would have to make do with a kitchen chair. He would spread her wide and drape her with pearls and make a feast out of her if she would give him the chance.

Belle was wiggling as much as she could trying to increase his pace, and he returned to caressing her breasts with his free hand as she ground into his finger. Finally, he heard her cry out and her whole body shook from her orgasm.

He kept touching her until he felt her start to shy away and then he slid his finger back out. It was damp even through the rope and he tasted her sweetness.

“I'm going to flip you over,” he said, and she nodded drowsily. He probably had another few minutes before her arousal would begin to overcome her again and he was hoping to get her into this final position first.

Once she was on her stomach, Gold ran another length of rope from the ceiling through several of the loops behind her back and shoulders before he tugged it up, pulling her completely off the floor. Her legs were still higher than her torso, which curled her backward into a graceful C shape of blue rope and ivory skin.

“Perfect,” he said, spinning her slowly and enjoying the way this new position excited her. She was a little afraid, but she was enjoying it. “I could watch you like this for hours,” he continued. “In fact, I just might.”

He was teasing, and she knew he was teasing, but her indignant gasp when he brought a chair over and set it off to the side so he could reach out and touch her if he wanted was it's own sort of joy.

“Enjoying yourself?” she teased.

“Yes, very much,” he replied, reaching out and setting her slowly spinning again. She squeaked in displeasure, and he reached out and took one of the ropes to stop her. “Had enough already?”

“Not even close.”

“Good, I'd hate to think you were losing your edge. You’d end up running off to Tampa with a lounge magician and I’d have to find a new assistant.”

“If you think this is so easy, I'd like to see you try it.”

“No thank you,” he said, pulling her towards him enough that she would start to feel off balance. “I much prefer watching you.”

“You can do more than watch, you know.”

He felt his cock reacting to her words and her own arousal at the prospect of what _more_ could entail.

“Don't tell me you're sick of floating already,” he teased. “I put a lot of work into that harness.

“I've missed you,” she pouted. “You've been working all day.”

“Like you should have been,” he teased, tugging on her nipples. “But I suppose if you promise to work extra hard tomorrow…”

She nodded enthusiastically and he made a big show of unhooking her legs from the ceiling and letting them down. She was just barely able to reach the floor, though of course her bound toes and feet couldn't hold any of her weight and left her dangling helplessly anyway. He'd tied her so thoroughly that her hips were on a separate length of rope from her torso, and it was a matter of a few moments to have her bare between her waist and knees.

He could feel her anticipation rocketing through her as he slid his fingers inside of her to retrieve the bullet vibrator and to spread her wetness around her entrance.

“You are positively soaked, my dear,” he said as he stroked her inner walls until just before he felt her orgasm wash over her.

She was on the verge of coming apart as he freed himself from his trousers and lined himself up at her entrance. He thought he might lose his mind as he thrust into her. Her legs being bound together made her entrance so unbelievably tight even though she was incredibly aroused and the ropes holding her up made his every thrust even deeper since he was able to pull her back against himself with ease. He knew he wouldn't last long as good as it felt to be wrapped up in both her body and mind, and he decided to risk something he never had before.

He reached his fingers down and slid them between her legs, not quite stroking her as he thrust, but he called up a gentle staticky feeling that tingled to the touch and soon she was screaming his name and he felt the ecstasy rolling over her as she came. He thrust harder and faster, drawing her pleasure out until he couldn't stop himself and he came deep inside of her.

She was dangling limply from the ropes as he slid from her and spun her slowly to face him.

“Are you okay?” he asked and she nodded. “Good. I expect you to work at least that hard on rehearsals tomorrow.”

“I don't think I can,” she said sounding dazed. “What _was_ that?”

“Magic,” he replied with a teasing flare of his hands. “If I told you all of my tricks you'd never leave the shower.”

He punctuated this gentle scold with a quick kiss on her lips and she smiled and sighed.

“Fine, don't tell me,” she said. “Just whatever toy that was please don't lose it. I promise I'll never run away to Tampa.”

“It's a deal,” he said, kissing her again. “Now, let's get you down.”

Untying her was almost as erotic as getting her bound in the first place. He started from her toes and feet and worked his way up until he could stand her up and unhook her from the ceiling. After that, it was a simple matter of carrying her to their shared bed and sucking her nipples and fingering her with the new ‘toy’ until she was limp and languid, and not asking any questions about what had been in his hand. Finally, he untied her chest and arms and let her fall asleep in his embrace.


	3. Water Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle notices something that's not quite right about Gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this Gold. He is such a shifty bastard.

Belle tried not to let herself be distracted by the banter as the audience volunteer strapped Gold into the straightjacket. This was fairly new to their stage routine, and she was always uneasy with it. Unlike a lot of their act, a straightjacket escape didn’t have a _trick_ to it, per se. There was a way to position your arms and Gold would hold some of the fabric in front of himself to get some extra slack, but ultimately it was performed by stretching his arms over his head and working himself out of it. She especially hated it when he did the trick underwater, because there was no way for her to know when he was in distress until it was too late.

It was always a little terrifying to shut the padlocks on the box and pull the lever to lower him into the tank of water. She knew the trick by heart – how long it should take him to escape the straightjacket, how long it took him to open the hidden trapdoor at the bottom of the box, how long it took him to work the trapdoor back into position, how long it should take him to surface from the water tank, and she knew the signal to drop the curtain around the top of the box to reveal him standing on it. And this time, he was late. Not terribly late – maybe thirty seconds or so longer than usual, but it was enough for her to know something was wrong. She was trying to decide if she should interrupt the trick or not when she heard his footsteps as he got into position behind the curtain and there was a little breeze from his body moving before she ripped the curtain down to reveal him standing there. There was a round of applause and they took their bows before vacating the stage.

Both of them tended to need a few minutes to decompress after a show before speaking. They were both perfectionists, and if they spoke too soon they tended to fight. So, she was halfway through taking off the stage makeup when she finally broached the topic of his delay.

“You took longer than usual getting out of the straight jacket,” she said as neutrally as she could manage.

“I lost my grip on the front of the jacket before I was tied in,” he replied. “It took a little doing to get out of it.”

“Oh. Is that something we should be worried about?”

“Not at all,” he said easily. “I got out fine, it just took a little longer.”

She didn’t like that response, but she also didn’t want to have a knock-down-drag-out fight about it immediately after the show – it was the sort of argument that was meant to be had during a rehearsal and she had every intention of pitching an unholy fit if he didn’t run through this trick until he could do it with his eyes closed tomorrow.

Once they were out of costume and the crowds had left, it was time to get everything cleaned up. On this particular occasion, Belle was changed before he was. She generally had an easier time getting out of her faux-corset and tutu than he did his leather pants and satin shirt, they both wore a full face of stage makeup, and he would need to dry himself off and hang up his wet clothes, so she was in shorts and a t-shirt and packing up their equipment while he was still putting his things back to rights on the hangers.

Usually, she’d start with the smaller tricks like the dove pans and then work on the larger equipment once he’d joined her, but today she went straight for the water tank. Something about the whole situation didn’t sit right with her, and she wasn’t going to feel better until she’d seen first hand that everything was in good repair.

Getting the crate out of the tank wasn’t nearly as easy as putting it in – the whole thing was on a pulley leading from the tank to a spool with a hand crank that had a ratcheting mechanism to keep the tank up, but she had to raise the rope before she could wind it onto the spool and she had to drop her legs out from under herself and cling to the rope to let her body weight work it out. But eventually, she had it out and back on the platform. She unlocked the padlocks and swung the door open, sidestepping the little bit of water that hadn’t quite drained out of it. The straightjacket was soaking wet in the bottom, and she picked it up so she could hang it to dry. That was when she noticed the straps were all still latched. She stared at it trying to make sense of what she was looking at. The sleeves were still latched together and so were the straps around the neck and chest. It was all still put together the same way it had been when she had locked Gold in the box, but he’d gotten out. It was like he’d just...evaporated from it.

She was still holding the soggy canvas when he walked in and called out her name. She dropped the straightjacket like she’d been caught looking at something she shouldn’t have been, and she couldn’t quite figure out why. This was one of her jobs, and there wasn’t anything to be ashamed of finding. He froze and looked between her and the jacket for a moment before he relaxed and smiled at her.

“I can’t believe you got that out by yourself,” he said. “I thought it weighed more than you do.”

“Only when it’s full,” she replied. “When the water starts to drain it’s not so bad.”

“That’s very good to know.”

His fingers were twitching like they always did when he was nervous – why was he nervous? It made absolutely no sense at all. She bent down and picked up the straightjacket again, draping it over her arms as nonchalantly as possible and descending the little staircase by the platform like there was nothing wrong at all and she was just going to hang the straightjacket like she usually did. She unstrapped it once she was alone, destroying the evidence of _something_ that was so upsetting to them both, and then hung it to dry with a towel folded on the floor underneath.

It was such a strange detail to have the straps still engaged. Either he had redone them before surfacing which made no sense at all or he had somehow gotten out of the jacket without unfastening any of the latches which made even less sense. He didn’t use a special straightjacket like some magicians did; it was a little large on him, but the sleeves were a normal length. She’d double checked everything herself before he went in the tank, and he hadn’t told her that he’d gotten into any trouble at that point. The routine was that if anything went wrong with getting himself into the straightjacket he’d signal her during that inspection so she could notice an error (usually pointing out that they hadn’t tied him up tight enough and moving his arms around a little since most people didn’t have enough experience to know some motion was normal during the process) and had the audience member redo the jacket. But he _hadn’t_ signalled to her, and she had put him into a locked box and dropped him into a tank of water.

Her mind was buzzing with tension as she tried to work it all out. Why had he taken the risk? Why were the straps still latched? How had he gotten out? What was he so worried about her finding in the tank? She was still puzzling all of it over when she rejoined him on stage. He’d mopped up the trail of water she’d left behind already and was checking the swords they used for the Devil’s Torture Chamber to make sure they were straight. Any deformities had to be corrected or replaced so they could be properly directed through the box without cutting her and she didn’t want to distract him, so she went back to inventorying the other props before returning them to their homes in the trunk. She was going to need to go retrieve the doves soon to return them to their enclosure, too.

Gold was behind her before she even noticed he’d moved with his hands on her hips and his lips on her neck. He still set her skin on fire by touching her, and sometimes she thought he might know it. It was amazing how he could always find the exact right place to touch her and seemed to know she wanted something almost before she did.

“I’ll get the rest of this,” he whispered, wrapping an arm around her middle and sliding a hand down her shorts to cup her over her panties. Somehow, this always felt different from any guy she’d ever met – felt better than even touching herself, honestly. It was a struggle to keep her wits about her while wrapped in him, but she struggled through the fog as well as she could.

“I don’t mind,” she said, even as her body canted back into his. “Besides, the doves don’t like you as much as me.”

He chuckled against her skin and it sent a shiver through her body that she was powerless against.

“The doves and I get on fine. Besides, I’ve had something in mind for you I’d like to try if you’ll let me?”

She was completely sunk – that tone in his voice and the way he played her body like an instrument had her beyond the point of distraction. There was no way she could focus on work needing to be done or being suspicious of anything when his hand was stroking her so perfectly.

Belle nodded her consent and he had her shorts around her ankles before she could blink. She had no idea where he got the rope, but he must have brought it out with him or had it stashed away somewhere for this because he bound her forearms together from wrists to elbows, rendering her totally helpless to his touch.

They’d had sex on stage before, but every time felt fresh and sexy. Her entire life had been spent on a stage of some variety, and it felt _right_ somehow to do even these most private acts where anybody could walk in and see them. Not that anyone ever had, but they could. Their stage here wasn’t really a building, it was a scaffolding with a heavy canvas tent over top of it and a curtain that could separate the audience from the performers. Even now, with all the people gone, there were still people wandering around looking after their animals and preparing their own shows for the next day. They didn’t publish their relationship, but most people assumed that they had been sleeping together since she’d joined him on stage. Either way, it would still be shocking to be caught here with her arms bound together as he threaded another rope through that binding to create a lead.

Once he was happy with how she was bound, he tugged the rope gently and she stumbled forward, following him towards the scaffolding that held the crate he had escaped from earlier. She briefly had the shockingly erotic thought that he might hang her from the same chain and dip her into the tank and she almost blushed at the thought. She’d thought he had looked at her strangely at that moment, but it had to have been her incredibly fevered imagination and he stopped her underneath the platform. There were crossbeams here that kept the whole thing from collapsing under the weight of the two of them plus the tank, and he tossed the rope lead over one of the crossbeams and pulled until her arms were over her head and she was on tiptoe beneath the platform.

He smiled and ran his hands up her shirt to cup her breasts gently, rubbing the rope across her skin in a way that always drove her absolutely mad. She could never understand how he always seemed to know her limits before she’d even voiced them, but he had her just at the point of comfort when he stepped away and moved behind her slowly. She felt his hand between her shoulder blades, pushing her forward and she bent at the waist, waiting for him to pull her panties off and take her from behind but instead he pulled her left leg up, stretching it back towards her hands just to the point of comfort before he wrapped the rope a few times around her ankle and tied it firmly. He had her completely helpless now, she could lower her leg if she wanted to pull her arms and torso back, or she could lower her arms and raise her leg. She could take herself off tiptoes, but only if she wanted to bend both her leg and her torso. Her muscles were already starting to protest being held still in this position, but then he was stroking her thighs closer and closer to where she wanted him to be and it was hard to notice whatever discomfort she felt.

Anyone could walk into this tent. It would be the easiest thing in the world to pull back one of the flaps to reveal her standing here bound like a ballerina with no pants on while he stroked her and teased her until she was sure she would forget her own name. Her leg felt weak, and she was forced to lean into the ropes to keep from stumbling as his fingers slipped into her at last. At first, she tried to keep herself steady but eventually realized that was a hopeless endeavor. She was going to move where he wanted her. Belle relaxed as well as she could given the circumstances, but he was doing that thing with his fingers that always drove her crazy and before long she was biting her lip to keep from crying out as she came. He kept fingering her as her muscles clenched around him and it drove her wild.

“Just relax,” he said soothingly before he pulled his fingers from her.

“Dammit, Gold,” she groaned, hating the emptiness she felt now that he wasn’t inside her.

“Be patient,” he scolded teasingly and she felt some motion behind her but couldn’t have said what it was until she felt his lips over her clit and couldn’t contain the shriek of pleasure at that.

Somebody was going to walk in. Someone was going to come in here and see him behind her eating her out while she was tied up like this and he didn’t seem to care. He was holding her hips to keep her from bucking forward as his tongue and lips were working her entrance and she couldn’t make herself be quiet as he pulled a second orgasm from her body, and no sooner had she come down than his fingers were curling inside her as he sucked her clit and she screamed her way through a third massive orgasm. How did he even _do_ that? How did he know to do it? He was the best sex she’d ever had in her entire _life_.

By the time he finally stood up and slid his cock into her, Belle could hardly think anymore. She didn’t want to think anymore, she just wanted to focus on the feel of him inside her and his hands on her breasts as he thrust into her over and over and over again. Her clit was too tender for her to have stood him touching it, but he just fucked her and teased her nipples, pinching and teasing them with each thrust until she finally cried out again and was tugging on the ropes as her entire body shook with the depths of that last orgasm.

He must have come, too, but she didn’t remember. The next thing she was aware of was the tension in her body being released as he untied the rope holding her up, and he had one hand around her waist to keep her from pitching forward and the other under her left leg so he could guide her entire body gently to the floor. He’d never even taken off her panties, and she was completely wrecked. Her muscles were sore and her nerves were on fire and she just wanted to go to sleep for a week. He held her against his chest as her breathing evened out, and it felt safe and warm and perfect, like a home.

“That was so good,” she said once she could speak. “I hadn’t even realized how badly I needed that.”

“Yeah?”

“God, yes. You are _so_ good and I’m so worn out.”

She felt him smile and he kissed the top of her head affectionately.

“Why don’t you go back to the trailer and lay down for me?” he said. “I’ll finish up here.”

She should help him – it was part of her job and she didn’t want special treatment for sleeping with him, but at the same time all her muscles felt like jelly and she wasn’t entirely sure she could make the walk back by herself without walking side to side from how well he’d fucked her.

“Are you sure?” she said at last. “I can stay.”

“I’m completely sure,” he replied. “I’ll be happier knowing you’re recuperated before I do anything else to you.”

Now _that_ was an idea she couldn’t say ‘no’ to. How could she be aroused again already? She’d been completely senseless before and now she felt that warm tension spreading between her hips and she would have climbed on top of him and begged if she’d thought it would have made any difference at all.

He helped her to her feet and untied her arms. She put her own shorts back on and kissed him goodbye before exiting the tent. Nobody even looked at her twice, so apparently she hadn’t alerted anyone to their affair or at least nobody had cared. Either way, it was a thoroughly uneventful walk followed by a thoroughly frustrating hour alone in their bed, completely unable to either forget her arousal or get herself off without his magic touch.


End file.
